Saturday, October 30, 2010

Scans of this magazine in CBR format are online as part of a larger package.

Table of contents.

Links on authors fetch more fiction by author. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there.

Edmond Hamilton's "The Dark Backward": "In winter, on an island off New England coast, you get used to wind-lashed surf, to hardship & struggle, to the cold, lonely life. May be you get so used to it that you don't want to hear when the bright future calls..."

[non fiction] Isaac Asimov's "The Big Bang": "Neutronium, as everybody knows, is heavier than anything...& doesn't exist. Dr Asimov here gives details of what it would be--& what it might actually have been!"

Arthur C Clarke's "Cosmic Casanova" (A): "I was two months out on solo galaxy scouting trip, & I was ... restless. And then I contacted an unknown planet that might be one of Earth's lost colonies... Could be a date was closer than I thought."

[novelet] Rog Phillips' "Ground Leave Incident": "To a young country couple on an isolated, hardship planet, a spaceship visit is a special event. There is the trip to town, new clothes, the smell of fresh food & spices... There are also the hot, demanding eyes of women-hungry crew."

Gordon R Dickson's "Fleegl of Fleegl": "Fleegl was a rabbity-looking sort, with four arms, a force field, & a conviction that people were demented. He also had an extraordinary space tube a missionary's zeal, & a regrettable resistance to fission bombs & reason..."

Algis Budrys' "A World Named Mary" (as by Robert Marner): "Bill & Mary found the planet, & it was beautiful. Which pleased Mary, but didn't surprise her--she was accustomed to getting what she wanted. Then Bill named the planet after her--& everything changed..."

Isaac Asimov's "Buy Jupiter!": "The aliens were strong enough simply to take Jupiter, but for some reason they wanted it all legal. And the price they offered was fine. Thing was--why did they want the gassy old thing...?"

[novelette] Theodore Sturgeon's "The Comedian's Children": "Everybody--almost everybody--loved unsmiling Heri Gonza, the world's funniest man. Look how he took over when that frightening children's disease was brought back from Iapetus. He gave wholly of himself, gave his money, his love, his talent... The one thing he didn't give was a cure. That seemed to be locked in the mind of Gonza's most dedicated enemy--& on the frozen surface of Saturn's eighth satellite..."